Tony Hillerman: Sacred Clowns

“Meaning what?” But even then he sensed what Streib meant. Davis had found his friend.

“Meaning I called the Inn and Applebee had checked back in there but wasn’t in his room. So I drove over to Window Rock and parked there to wait for him, and he drove up in that ritzy English Land Rover of his and got out, and Asher Davis was parked down a ways and he walked up and shot Applebee.”

“Just walked up and shot him? Killed him?”

“Three times in the chest with a forty-five. That’ll do it.”

“Just shot him? Didn’t say anything?”

Streib laughed. “Well, yes. I was walking up from the other side and Applebee saw Davis coming and he must have seen the gun and he said something and Davis yelled at him. Said, ‘Roger, don’t say a goddam word.’ Then bang, bang, bang .”

Leaphorn had nothing to say.

Streib said, “I told him to drop the gun and he turned it around and handed me the butt and he put his hands behind his back to get handcuffed. And then I remembered you reminding me about reading him his rights, and I got that out of the way, and-”

“Applebee was dead?”

“Davis asked me that, too. I said, yeah, he’s dead, and he said, ‘Of course. Roger always left me to deal with the problem.’ You know what he meant by that?”

“I guess so,” Leaphorn said. But he didn’t want to explain it now. He wanted to get out of Dorsey’s haunted room, out into the air. It was time to go home.

He rose and pulled back the curtain for another look at the weather. Almost full dark now. Cloudy. Snow by morning, he guessed. What did he have to eat at home? He was out of milk, he remembered. Eggs but no bacon. Maybe a can of chili left, and about a half-loaf of bread, sort of stale. He stretched, grimaced at the painful stiffness in his back. He really didn’t want to go home. The house would be cold. The bed would be cold. His footsteps would echo. Where was Louisa now?

He turned out the light, locked behind him the door that was no longer Dorsey’s door, and started down the walk. Louisa would be leaving Honolulu by now, he thought. In the air. He imagined himself in the seat beside her. He imagined himself holding her hand. He imagined listening to her telling him what to expect in China. He imagined -

In the darkness, a woman was walking across the gravel toward him. Louisa.

“Joe Leaphorn,” she said. “You are one hell of a hard man to locate.”

Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn was speechless.

“You leave me a message on the answering machine. But then you’re not at your office, and you’re not at home. You don’t seem to be anyplace at all. But Virginia, bless her, Virginia finally-”

“What are you doing here?” Leaphorn asked. “Why aren’t you on that airplane?”

“I can always go to China,” Louisa said. “You said you were suspended. I thought you would need somebody.”

“I do.” Leaphorn realized that his voice was shaky. But it didn’t matter. “I need you.”

The characters in this book are figments of the author’s imagination, representing no one. Nor does Tano Pueblo exist. What one sees of Tano ceremonialism herein is a melding of the author’s experience at other pueblos.

The author is indebted for the help and advice of Dr. Louis Hieb of the University of Arizona, the author of many works on the koshare and the ritual clowns of the Hopis. However, Tano is not a Hopi village and the descriptions in this book do not represent Hopi religious activities.

TONY HILLERMAN is past president of the Mystery Writers of America and has received its Edgar and Grand Master Awards. His other honors include the Center for the American Indian’s Ambassador Award, the Silver Spur Award for the best novel set in the West, and the Navajo Tribe’s Special Friend Award. He lives with his wife, Marie, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.